Black History Month is the time that connections need to be made between the ancestors of Black heritage and the living inheritors. As educator Christopher Emdin wrote on our blog, the stories of past battles should never be told as if they are over or conquered. The stories are alive and playing out today. Seeing the connections between the past and the present gives us the context that enriches our history. In the spirit of Emdin’s observations, we’re offering the following list of recommending reading.

Telling the stories of African American domestic workers, scholar and activist Premilla Nadasen resurrects the little-known history of domestic worker activism in the 1960s and 1970s, offering new perspectives on race, labor, feminism, and organizing.

NAACP Image Award-winning historian Jeanne Theoharis dissects the national myth-making around the civil rights movement, revealing its complex reality, the power of its organizing, and the beauty and scope of its vision.

In his final book, Martin Luther King, Jr. lays out his thoughts, plans, and dreams for America’s future. He demands an end to global suffering, asserting that humankind—for the first time—has the resources and technology to eradicate poverty.

Sharon Leslie Morgan, a Black woman from Chicago’s South Side, and Thomas Norman DeWolf, a white man from rural Oregon, embark on a three-year journey of racial reconciliation by confronting the unhealed wounds of slavery.

Historian Daina Berry has written the first book to explore the economic value of enslaved people through every phase of their lives—including preconception, infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, the senior years, and death—in the early American domestic slave trade.

Award-winning journalist Joseph Rosenbloom gives us an intimate look at the last thirty-one hours of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life as he seeks to revive the nonviolent civil rights movement and push to end poverty in America.

In his coming-of-age memoir, pop music critic and culture journalist Rashod Ollison tells his story of growing up Black and gay in central Arkansas while searching for himself and his distant father through soul music.

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Bridging the Ancestors to the Present Generations: A Black History Month Reading List

Black History Month is the time that connections need to be made between the ancestors of Black heritage and the living inheritors. As educator Christopher Emdin wrote on our blog, the stories of past battles should never be told as if they are over or conquered. The stories are alive and playing out today. Seeing the connections between the past and the present gives us the context that enriches our history. In the spirit of Emdin’s observations, we’re offering the following list of recommending reading.

Telling the stories of African American domestic workers, scholar and activist Premilla Nadasen resurrects the little-known history of domestic worker activism in the 1960s and 1970s, offering new perspectives on race, labor, feminism, and organizing.

NAACP Image Award-winning historian Jeanne Theoharis dissects the national myth-making around the civil rights movement, revealing its complex reality, the power of its organizing, and the beauty and scope of its vision.

In his final book, Martin Luther King, Jr. lays out his thoughts, plans, and dreams for America’s future. He demands an end to global suffering, asserting that humankind—for the first time—has the resources and technology to eradicate poverty.

Sharon Leslie Morgan, a Black woman from Chicago’s South Side, and Thomas Norman DeWolf, a white man from rural Oregon, embark on a three-year journey of racial reconciliation by confronting the unhealed wounds of slavery.

Historian Daina Berry has written the first book to explore the economic value of enslaved people through every phase of their lives—including preconception, infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, the senior years, and death—in the early American domestic slave trade.

Award-winning journalist Joseph Rosenbloom gives us an intimate look at the last thirty-one hours of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life as he seeks to revive the nonviolent civil rights movement and push to end poverty in America.

In his coming-of-age memoir, pop music critic and culture journalist Rashod Ollison tells his story of growing up Black and gay in central Arkansas while searching for himself and his distant father through soul music.